25 February 2015

Continuing a sequence of magisterial pronouncements, the Administrator of the Central Bank, Dinos Christofides, issued a memo to managers and staff in FBME Bank’s Cyprus branch reminding them of the 8.30 am to 5.00 pm working day at the branch. He also added that any senior staff seeking to go on leave had to put in a request through HR and wait for Mr Christofides to issue his approval.

This applies to everyone in the Cyprus branch “without exception”, he writes. Ahem. Actually, that should be almost without exception as it obviously does not apply to Mr Christofides himself, who departs each day at around 2 pm and stages unexplained disappearances, which cause transactions of the branch to grind to a halt and appeals for emergency leave to go unheard. For this, he pays himself an attractive salary from FBME Bank funds. Nice work if you can get it!